Praying for Our Children

"The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much."
--James 5:16b

by Marsha Norris

As parents, there will be times we feel out of contol over the circumstances of our children's lives. We may spend more time worrying over our children than praying for them. We forget that GOD is always in control and patiently waiting for us to seek His help and wisdom.

Prayer is powerful! It acknowledges our dependence on GOD and invites His participation into our lives. Prayer is our most powerful tool — yet often most neglected resource.

I regret the weakness of my own prayer life while my first two children were growing up. Looking back, I now see how much smoother our lives would have been had we spent more time on our knees and less time in conflict.

Pillow prayers:

Last year I read an article about a mother who regularly wrote out prayers for her teenage daughter and left them on her daughter's pillow. The mother wrote these prayers to encourage and strengthen her daughter as she charted her way through today's culture.

Having a teenager of my own, I felt this a wonderful way to reach out to my son and encourage and strengthen him in his walk with the LORD. So I too began to write out prayers and leave them on my son's pillow. Some days my prayers are requests for goals or strengths I want him to obtain, some days they are prayers of thanksgiving. I often pray that he will keep himself sexually pure for his future wife and that she will keep herself pure for him. Other days I thank GOD for my son's outstanding virtues. I want my son to know that I not only acknowledge those virtues to him, but also acknowledge them to the LORD.

For my married children and their spouses, I send "pillow prayers" through e-mails or handwritten notes. Although my older children are now responsible adults, these "pillow prayers" remind them I am praying for them as they continue on their spiritual journeys.

"Pillow prayers" are a wonderful way to involve our children in the prayers we are praying for them without our being perceived as "preachy." By letting them know the heart-felt requests we are praying on their behalf, we transfer a sense of ownership in those requests and involve them in striving for those goals.

Keeping our children covered in prayer:

We are naive if we don't believe Satan is continually waging spiritual warfare against us, our families, and our country (Ephesians 6:12, I Peter 5:8). I often think of Job and how he continually prayed offensively for his children (Job 1:5), keeping them covered in prayer. We, too, must keep our children covered in prayer, praying daily for their spiritual protection. I have learned to begin each morning and end each day petitioning the LORD to protect me and my family spiritually, emotionally, and physically. I was deeply touched recently when my teenage son, while leading the family prayer, also petitioned the LORD for this protection.

Dr. James Dobson speaks of his great-grandfather and how he spent hours on his knees each day praying for his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, even those not yet born. It was said of him that the knees of his pants wore out before the soles of his shoes. And when he died, the epitaph on his headstone displayed only two words: "He prayed." I can think of no greater legacy to leave my children than to be remembered as a mother who prayed.